Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday June 27, 2014 @07:49AM
from the you-can-trust-us dept.

New submitter thermowax sends a report on how Massachusetts SWAT teams are dodging open records requests by claiming to be corporations. From the article:
As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. ... Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it's here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they're private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they're immune from open records requests. Let's be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they've incorporated, they're immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state's residents aren't permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they're used for, what sort of training they get or who they're primarily used against.

We were going to go to NASA Space Center, and they have a "security checkpoint" before you enter. You know what they're looking for? Food! I couldn't bring in a sandwich so my son with food allergies (yes the real, anaphylaxis kind) could eat lunch with us. All so they could make an extra buck at the snack counter. I guess they got enough complaints, because they allow bottled water now. I raised a big enough stink about it that they finally let me in, but what the fuck? If it's a goddam security check, look for guns and knives and forget the rest. If a little ham is going to cause the Mars exhibit to implode, why don't they have another checkpoint as you leave the food court?!

Anyway, I would have left, but my wife had already bought the tickets and was pissed at me for raising such a fuss. I was offended that she was not outraged. I mean this is complete bullshit, and she wants to raise our kids to just roll over and take it. More people need to get pissed at these "security" checks. I see it happening at more and more venues: football games, art museums, etc... At least the metal detectors in the courthouse came as a response to actual shootings. But come on, who is going to bother with a terrorist attack on the Duct Tape Museum of Greater Bumfuck? At some point the security measures cost more than what you're actually preventing.

No always accurate. I spent some time as an armed guard when I was much younger. The State actually had a certification course for "Peace Officers" that weren't actually law enforcement officers. It required a couple thousand hours of classroom instruction and an actual exam in order to get the certificate. It didn't give you any actual powers per se but it did signify that you should be a lot more competent in regards to knowing the law. What it did do though was make it a lot easier to find work wherein you had a lot more responsibility. I ended up working for a company that owned a lot of commercial and residential properties, and was empowered to represent the owner when it came to stuff like tresspassing. That isn't a power that any other person wouldn't have if on their own property but the scope is obviously different when comparing a private home and several city blocks of commercial properties.

The only real extra "power" that I had as an armed guard was the additional certification to carry a sidearm, including while operating a vehicle. I'm not actually sure that it was legal to carry my sidearm a number of the places that I did, but I never had to find out because nobody questioned it at the time. Had I entered those places not as an armed guard but as civilian I would definitely have been stopped and probably arrested.

A college campus SHOULDN'T have its own police. I have looked at the numbers, college police were a reaction from the 60s violence. In the last 30 years all they do is write tickets for parking and provide an unneeded presence at school.

Maybe for rural schools or colleges set in nice neighborhoods...but there are a lot of major universities located in areas that would not be very nice but for the presence of the school.

Look at schools like Columbia, UPenn, UChicago...They all border pretty rough neighborhoods. If the school wasn't there, the area where it sits would be a rough neighborhood too.

The private police forces keep a safety bubble for students. The local PD has many other things to worry about, while the university police (many of whom are just off-duty cops) can be 100% tasked with patrolling and maintaining student and neighborhood safety.

It also means that they aren't required to behave exactly the same way as cops are which can be of great benefit for a University that wants to take care of their students without policing them heavily. They can enforce non-law university rules, and they can choose not to enforce other actual laws as strictly as they might if they were on duty regular cops. For instance, I know that at my college, the university police were not big on busting people for underage drinking (obviously, there are other schools where this is the only thing they do...). They would still show up and bust rowdy parties when the neighbors complain, but they wouldn't pull out the breathalyzer and start checking IDs. Similarly, they might not enforce park closing times on a bunch of college kids playing frisbee at midnight, but they would still boot out non-students. Basically, the school pays them to keep kids safe, not to lock them down or hamper their fun--since they aren't the real police, they have a lot more leeway to profile people (e.g. kick you out of the park if nobody in your group can produce a student ID).

I believe it is common for state universities to have police that are an actual governmental body (rather than a private security force, which may still consist of state-certified officers who have full police powers).

Also, at least at my school, the majority of university police officers where off duty or retired cops (probably the easiest way to be a state-certified officer...already be one). So instead of working OT for the force (when the commander allows it), they had a stable overtime gig for the university.

SWAT is out of control and needs some serious reigning in. They should be limited to being deployed only where there is solid information that a suspect is armed and dangerous. Addresses should be checked by no less than three people...one on the team, the team supervisor, and upper level supervision. Targets should be observed and confirmed to be present and all attempts made to apprehend them outside of residences.

Further, team members should be criminally and civilly liable for the injury and deaths of innocents at their hand.

Too many innocent people are being killed and maimed by SWAT raids, too many SWAT raids are occurring, and too many times there is no repercussion for fucking things up and blowing a hole in little kid's chest. [ajc.com]

If, during an interaction between law enforcement and the public, someone dies, the best option is that it's the bad guy killed by a cop. Second best option is it's a cop killed by a bad guy, the worst option and one that should be avoided at all costs, even the cost of the life of a cop, is an innocent civilian being killed by a cop.

You can't have representatives of the State killing innocents and then just saying "Whoops, my bad" and then throwing money at the family.

Honestly there should be no such thing as a SWAT team at all. The police are supposed be a safety force.

If a situation really requires "Special Weapons and Tactics" than I would argue its not merely a criminal enterprise anymore but a rebellion. Its not a job for police at all its a job for the Governors Office and the State Militia (National Guard).

There needs to some serious accountability, and management by real professionals not Barny Fife playing with the fun new toys he got from his Homeland Security grant.

I strongly disagree. The military, including the national guard, has lots of training in killing, but little training in hostage recovery, preservation of criminal evidence, the rights of suspects, and protecting the safety of bystanders.

The police fall down on these things a lot, but at least they know how they're *supposed* to work. The national guard are the people you send in when you intend to kill citizens and you don't intend to have a trial afterward. (This is why the "peaceful" deployments of the guard in the civil rights era ended with dead citizens: that's their job.)

There is a time and a place for military suppression of unrest, but the SWAT team is an absolutely necessary middle ground between the beat cop and martial law.

I never said the military doesn't have rules, but they're not the rules you want for dealing with intranational criminal violence. That ROE is missing a little bit of info on how to talk armed men into surrendering, how to disable them without killing them, how to arrest them without screwing up their Miranda rights, how to avoid contaminating a crime scene, how to avoid property damage, the list goes on.

I don't want my military to know all that stuff. I want them to be good at killing enemy combatants whe

The Act, as modified in 1981, refers to the Armed Forces of the United States. It does not apply to the National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, is also not covered by the Posse Comitatus Act, primarily because the Coast Guard has both a m

No. You are flat-out wrong.As a Title 32 Soldier, I do not answer to the Title 10 US Army, period.By default, I am under the authority of the Govenor, period.

It's still federal troops being used against the citizenry.

No. Until I am placed under Title 10 orders, I am not a "federal troop." If I am placed on Title 10 orders, then yes, things do change. One of those things is that Posse Comitatus then applies, as funwithBSD points out.

On one hand, damn all lawyers! The corporation stance is stupid legal wrangling. On the other hand, I'd never become a cop due to the incredibly ridiculous amount of liability, red tape, blatantly lying "news" channels and papers, and blame for having to enforce bad laws.

Go do some ride-alongs with your local police to see what they put up with.

It's not that the SWAT officers, their commanders, or anyone else is necessarily contriving a system where they get all the power and none of the oversight. SWAT teams are very expensive to hire, train, equip, and maintain. Hence, they need to be shared by many police districts. When the state cannot organize them any better than at the county and muni level, the solution is left up to the counties and munis to work out. And this is what they chose because it was the only thing that fit, a shared cost f

Go do some ride-alongs with your local police to see what they put up with.

Boo fucking hoo. Being a cop is a shitty job. Guess what? LOTS of jobs are shitty. Is it risky? Not compared to being a fisherman, a lumberjack, a farm hand, a ranch hand, a truck driver, a steelworker, a pilot, or a garbageman-- all of whose per-capita workplace fatalities in the US are far higher than cops.

The problem with suing them is that you can only target the corp's assets. Structuring it in such a way that the 'company' doesn't actually have any is pretty standard.

I'm thinking that the BATFE needs to come inspect them to make sure they're in full compliance with the NFA. The regulations are completely different between being a government agency like a police department and a commercial company like a 501(c)(3). I'm also willing to bet that they use government letterhead to purchase restricted stuff.

The problem with suing them is that you can only target the corp's assets. Structuring it in such a way that the 'company' doesn't actually have any is pretty standard.

That isn't entirely the end of it, though. Where the formation of the corporation is little more than a sham, one can "pierce the corporate veil" to target specific tortfeasors within the entity. There are a whole host of different factors that must be proven by a plaintiff attempting to do so, so I won't speculate on whether any particular factor would apply here.

That being said, the corporate defense appears to be an effort to distance themselves from the legal requirements applicable to a government a

That's an interesting thought. You can still sue a governmental agency but as far as I know there's a wholly different set of protections and limitations when it comes to suing cops vs. private corporations.

I'd also question the legality of them acting as government agents (i.e. cops who arrest/detail/etc.) if they're a private corporation. Last I heard private security does NOT have the same powers as police. Not even close.

There is just so many things wrong with this concept it is hard to know where to begin...

If they are private corporations, then where is their proof that they complied with the open bidding laws every state has to gain the contract for the SWAT services? Where is the contract that specifies the services to be rendered? Where is the contract that specifies the amounts to be paid for those services? Where is the assurances that they won't use state resources in providing those services? Since it is tax dollar

So, if they're not government entities, then they're private entities, and as such not entitled to qualified immunity for their actions, right? So if they damage a house or hurt an individual, they're on the hook for damages (and criminal actions), and can't claim immunity from the courts...

When that comes up they are magically government entities again. I would guess that their employees are public but the management team is private, so documents and records are in private hands while all actions which could lead to litigation are being preformed by public servants.

It's strangely enough not the first time America was under corporate rules, The original Boston tea party did not actually target the British government but "The Company" an organization that looks a lot like the modern multinationals with the exception that it actually employed mercenary armies and ran most of the British Colonies. But then again modern megacorps are getting closer to the same power and structure as the East India Companies" as time progresses and will be even more powerful and even more entangled with the government then the old East India Companies if the trend continues.

Another strange detail of history is that Adam Smith's "Wealth Of Nations" were written to explain exactly how dangerous those kind of organizations were. And yet those now advocating a return to Mercantilism claims to be followers of Adam Smith ideals.

Another strange detail of history is that Adam Smith's "Wealth Of Nations" were written to explain exactly how dangerous those kind of organizations were. And yet those now advocating a return to Mercantilism claims to be followers of Adam Smith ideals.

There's nothing strange about it any more than that The Prince is used as a manual instead of a cautionary tale, as it was intended. Any technology left lying around unused gets picked up and used by anyone who happens along and finds it to be useful.

The East India company was a bit different situation. It was officially a crown corporation and IIRC was an agent of the crown. This absolved it of all legal liability in any English legal sphere where the monarchy of England had legal sway. Because it was an agent of the crown it could raise armies and even still it's property would be defended by the British military forces.

Even with the acronyms spelled out you'd need the background to know WTF he's talking about. Ownership of fully automatic firearms in the US is heavily regulated, and basically impossible for the average joe if you are talking about a firearm manufactured after 1986.

NFA - National Firearms Act, regulates ownership of automatic weapons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_ActLEO - Law Enforcement Officer.FFL - Federal Firearms License. Ties in with the NFA in this case, since you'd need to have

Wow. I had no idea that Europeans couldn't Google acronyms. Did Google firewall your nation or something?

I tried:

Better, possession of un-taxed National Fostering Association items.

Especially if anything is select fire and made after '86 since the only non-mil and non-low earth orbit that can possess such are Friend for Life holders with the Society of Toxicologists to deal in National Flute Association stuff....

They want the monetary and security advantages of being paid with taxpayer money without having to comply with the legal requirements of a taxpayer funded government organization. If they are allowed to get away with that, would anybody here like to guess here where it will go next?

FBI raid and arrest everyone in the SWAT team, put them in prison and charge them with Racketeering. Do it very public, invite the media and make these scumbags a lesson to cops across the country that they work FOR the citizens and must act as "public servants" and not a street gang.

Except that at the federal level we have an FBI and DOJ that spend much of their time advising local law enforcement to if not outright lie, at least not to advertise their capabilities and methods. Then we have all kinds of federal money being appropriated at the federal level and handed to the Homeland Security to distribute to local law enforcement specifically to help them militarize.

In short I don't really really see what you suggest happening, not unless in a surprise upset Gary Johnson is elected president in 2016. Its much more likely the FBI will help intimidate and silence anyone who makes to much noise about this issue.

Government officials and organizations have immunity from lawsuits for the most part, however private corporations are not. I'm sure there are any number of potential lawsuits that could be brought against them. I'd say it would be fun to watch them try to dance around the subject but it's not, really. It's sickening.

*BINGO* the right loves to co-opt libertarian arguments about privatization to create these 'public-private' partnerships specifically because they create legal gray areas where tons of power, weapons, and money are moved outside accountability.

Nobody knows what laws apply to these groups, and it takes decades and dollars the public does not have to get it sorted out in the courts.

As libertarian when I hear public private partnership I know to be truly scared; to they point where a new public agency sounds

Fine, then they're not law enforcement officers, and have far fewer room to operate legally, and any deaths and the like means they go to jail, right?

"You can't have it both ways," Jessie Rossman, a staff attorney for the Massachusetts ACLU, told me in a phone interview. "The same government authority that allows them to carry weapons, make arrests, and break down the doors of Massachusetts residents during dangerous raids also makes them a government agency that is subject to the open records law."

Exactly. If you're private corporations, you're not cops, you're vigilantes and operating outside of the law. If you're officers of the law, you're subject to oversight.

The argument that the LECs in Massachusetts are private corporations and therefore immune to the state open records law was made by Jack Collins, the general counsel for the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.

And, once again, the 'police' have no interest in upholding the law, just covering their own asses.

If this doesn't get tossed out by a court or the law makers, this is a terrible precedent. They're asking for the right to do anything they want without oversight or responsibility.

And it sounds like they've got a long history of doing things which they'd prefer to keep hidden from oversight -- like accidentally killing people.

This is basically the plot of Continuum [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_(TV_series)], which is currently in its third season.

I know this is a tangent, but there is a pretty good intersection of interests here on Slashdot between science-fiction and rights of the people versus government. The show makes it interesting because the viewer is meant to basically hate both sides, plus it has time-travel.

It's that simple. If they are not properly commissioned law enforcement officers then they are impersonating police and it is perfectly okay to answer deadly force with deadly force especially when they break into your home.

Such a coincidence, just today I read this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... [zerohedge.com]
"10 Facts About The SWATification Of America That Everyone Should Know"
"The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980."

Such a coincidence, just today I read this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... [zerohedge.com]
"10 Facts About The SWATification Of America That Everyone Should Know"
"The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980."

The best way to change that is to legalize all personal drug use. If the War on Drugs was successful at accomplishing any of its stated goals then we could have a
debate about this, but it isn't, and no honest person who looks into the matter would conclude otherwise. Anyone who wants to do drugs can easily obtain them.

The only things we can control are whether criminal gangs or legitimate businesses will profit from this, and whether law enforcement gets to keep its single biggest excuse for militariz

I work for local government (in a different state). A number of cities and counties around the state have banded together to manage custom software projects, etc, using a legal device known as a "Joint Powers Agreement".

The JPA creates a legal entity, much the same way that a contract creates a trust. This entity is essentially a delegation of authority from the various local government entities that constitute it, so it has some strange properties. For example, it has bank accounts, employs staff, rents an office, etc, but does not file tax returns.

It also, as far as our lawyers can tell, is exempt from all data practices laws. This isn't the end run you might seem to think. If a data request comes in to the entity, the staff there tells them to contact the relevant member entity. The requestor can then ask me (for example), and I am obligated to collect the data from my systems, and from the organization.

Basically, the legal reasoning is that the entity doesn't own anything, it merely possesses things on the behalf of the member entities. This is also why it doesn't file tax returns.

I don't know the legal situation in Massachusetts, but these are principles that derive from western jurisprudence in general, rather than from the laws of my state, so I suspect it is pretty similar. No idea where the 501(c)(3) thing comes in. I suspect that is more about being able to accept donations than anything else.

Personally, I think the citizens of that state should ask their legislature to pass a law to require such entities to respond to information requests, if that entity is involved in police operations. It is in the public interest to be able to request data from a consolidated entity of this nature, rather than having to deal with each individual member entity.

Sunshine laws need to be updated. Regardless of whether the JPA entity owns anything or not, it provides ample opportunity to hide and obfuscate information, whether physically in JPA controlled offices or by misdirection ("We don't have that, contact XYZ county." "No, that information is controlled by the Joint Fubar corporation, we don't keep those records."). And more often than not such situations would probably result from general bureaucratic morass as much as malice.

I also find it curious that someone would even *ask* whether they were exempt from data practices laws. Why ask if you don't intend to disobey them? The intent of data practices laws is to promote open government, any organization controlled by the government should follow the rules as if they were a governmental organization.

The government should not ever have the ability to form organizations they can delegate authority to that are immune from laws regulating the government.

Remember when VP Cheney said he didn't have to comply with record requests because he not in the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branch of government? This is copy of his playbook.

It's become a rather common excuse. These days it is typically mixed up with corporate claims of privacy. Essentially corporate secrecy is used as a way if short circuiting the rule of law. That's how the police departments that use Stingray cell phone interception technology to shred constitutional protections avoid admitting what they are doing: they have a confidentiality clause with the company who makes the device. Same thing with fracking chemicals: they can pump any toxic crap that they want to into the ground because it's a business secret.

So where were all the right wingers when this was going down during the Bush era? You know, the ones who are now claiming that Obama is destroying the constitution? Massive amnesia and/or massive hypocrisy?

(Personally I am furious with Obama because he has continued the blatantly unconstitutional policies of the Bush years, but at least I am not lying through my teeth and supporting one executive while screeching like a stuck pig when a democrat does the same kind of crap.)

Personally I am furious with Obama because he has continued the blatantly unconstitutional policies of the Bush years, but at least I am not lying through my teeth and supporting one executive while screeching like a stuck pig when a democrat does the same kind of crap.

But are you furious enough to dispense with your partisan dislike of the Republicans to stop voting for Democrats, too, when present and nearly certain future policies and actions are no different?

Laws become more and more invasive and complex to match the size and density of populations. It is not political theory but a simple observation of fact. With large, denser, more complex, cities and suburbs a bad actor can do such great harm that much more scrutiny has to be applied. Imagine some really hot nuclear dust being tossed out a window in such a way that a large part of a major city was off limits to humans for the next 200,000 years. Or it might be a bacteria or viral attack. The Oklahoma co

None of the people quoted in the article seem to have any idea what they are saying. The most disturbing thing is that the ACLU is whining about this as if this was a legitimate argument. It is not.

Here are a few of the most poignant reasons why this argument fails:

First and foremost 501(c)(3) is an IRS regulation that means a corporation does not have to pay income tax. 501(c)(3) is NOT a method by which a corporation maybe formed.

Second, states not the federal government create the rules for creating a corporation.

Third, there are many different types of corporations, one of those types is a municipal corporation. Just because you have something called a corporation does not mean it is private. Municipal corporations are subject to FOIA

Fourth, corporations can register with the IRS as 501(c)(3) non-profits, but to use it as a tool to hide information would be incredibly stupid because 501(c)(3) status means you must release more information about your internal workings than a normal private corporation would need to disclose.

Either the ACLU is whining because they don't have the sharpest knife in the drawer dealing with these FOIA requests, or this is a calculated move to drum up donations.

IRS as 501(c)(3) non-profits, but to use it as a tool to hide information would be incredibly stupid because 501(c)(3) status means you must release more information about your internal workings than a normal private corporation would need to disclose.

Not true in a lot of cases. I've been on the board of a 501c3 and I'm also a corporate accountant. Our normal disclosure requirements for the non-profit were fairly minimal and certainly less than most of the companies I've been involved in. You are correct in some cases but not universally so.

...in Massachusetts. Seriously, no joke. After the marathon bombings there was an unending outpouring of adulation for the "first respondahs." You'd think they had, at enormous losses, turned back the Taliban from invading Cambridge and raping the childrens. Not, in actuality, shut down the entire city while they raced around with giant hardons in a largely bungled effort to locate a bleeding, unarmed boy hiding in someone's boat in their back yard (whom the homeowner found and frankly should have clubbed to death on the spot). In the process of arresting this unarmed miscreant they unleashed a barrage of fire on the boat very nearly killing the kid in the process.

Meanwhile folks are still running around with their "Boston Strong" shirts on in one of the lamest displays of self-congratulatory faux heroism that I've ever seen.

The cops and firefighters are milking it with giant billboards touting some BS about being "on the home team", trying to get people to donate to some police fund. It's pathetic.

This 501(c)3 nonsense is just further evidence of their warped perspective of what it is "to protect and serve."

This conversation's going nowhere because we've started with a one-sided news report and all of us agree that this is bullshit. It's chest-high full of straw men in here. So here's an attempt to describe the SWAT teams' legal rationale for this. It comes from reading the news report, reading the Law Enforcement Councils' website, and living in Massachusetts so I know how local government works. Plus a lot of "what would I do if I were evil" speculation.

Massachusetts has very weak county government. Local law enforcement, even in rural areas, happens at the town level. Many small towns have like one cop car and two cops, and can't afford a crime lab, a drug lab, a K-9 unit, and whatnot. The county provides specialist services to all the towns within it, but SWAT teams are not one of these services. It makes total sense that local towns would form a cooperative association (the LECs) to pool their limited SWAT resources.

From what I read on their websites, it looks like SWAT personnel don't work for the LEC. They're ordinary town cops who're assigned duty to work with other town cops through the LEC. That is to say, the LEC has no law enforcement authority, but the individual cops do. The LEC provides equipment storage, networking, and shared training for the town cops. As far as I can tell, legally, the LEC is just a place to park the SWAT van, a seminar room for Powerpoints, and a phone tree.

It's not a private army, I bet they'll say, it's a professional association, just like how your city's dentists all get together at the country club first Tuesday of the month. All the personnel are employed by the towns. All the equipment belongs to the towns. You want the public records for your recent 3 a.m. visit by the battering ram boys? Talk to your town.

Now, clearly, this is all bullshit. But it seems to me to be well-crafted bullshit, created by the SWAT teams' lawyer buddies, and we're not going to make it go away unless we appreciate it for what it is.

(a) TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.—(1) Notwithstanding any other
provision of law and subject to subsection (b), the Secretary of
Defense may transfer to Federal and State agencies personal prop-
erty of the Department of Defense, including small arms and
ammunition, that the Secretary determines is

(emphasis mine)
If you're not a government agency... what are you doing with all that excess military equipment acquired via the 1033 program?

Not a libertarian, but to play devil's advocate for a moment: the problem is that they're a state-appointed-and-run agency, so this isn't properly privatised. You have the bad half of privatisation, but not the good half. You could argue that if the system was actually an open market with private security firms competing for the government's business then you'd have open-ness.

Now as far as I'm concerned, history has proven that it'd never actually work out that way, but there you go.

This is simply a contracting issue. The state can put disclosure and transparency requirements in the contract, the private company can agree or not get the contract. Failure to properly contract is the problem.

This is simply a contracting issue. The state can put disclosure and transparency requirements in the contract, the private company can agree or not get the contract.

If the open records law is meant to have any teeth it should be mandatory that there are disclosure requirements in the contract. And any agency, private or otherwise: has no authority to act with government powers, without compliance with the law, regardless of what kind of legal structure they use to organize their organization.

This is simply a contracting issue. The state can put disclosure and transparency requirements in the contract, the private company can agree or not get the contract.

Whether or not they put it in a contract is irrelevant. A contract is void if it contradicts the law and the argument they are making pretty clearly contradicts the law in all likelihood. The argument this company is making is that they are not subject to rule of law, specifically the oversight that applies to law officers and their activities. Essentially they are arguing that the law doesn't apply to them because the check is from a private company even though the activities are unambiguously on the behalf of the government.

Basically if their argument is correct then they are private citizens engaging in vigilante activities and they should be in jail. If their argument is wrong then they are in violation a host of other laws and they should be in jail. Either way it has nothing to do with contract law.

Not a libertarian, but to play devil's advocate for a moment: the problem is that they're a state-appointed-and-run agency, so this isn't properly privatised. You have the bad half of privatisation, but not the good half. You could argue that if the system was actually an open market with private security firms competing for the government's business then you'd have open-ness.

Now as far as I'm concerned, history has proven that it'd never actually work out that way, but there you go.

I am a Libertarian and your devils advocate argument is dead on. Good job:-)

Your concern about "history" is a valid one. But you need to look at a validly unregulated market to compare. We rarely, if ever, have those.

You could argue that if the system was actually an open market with private security firms competing for the government's business then you'd have open-ness.

Maye you could, but in all conscience, I could not.

An open market doesn't confer superior morality. In fact, it doesn't even confer superior product or service.

The Invisible Hand selects for profitability, and if you can be profitable enough while selling people toxic pet food or children's toys laced with heavy metals, you can wipe your feet on competitors who provide better products.

Open bidding has nothing at all to do with open operation, in any event. You can have limited bids for an operation that works "in the sunshine" or open bids for an operation that works with Nixonian paranoia.

In its purest ideological form, Libertarianism is about promoting Liberty and the limitation of the use of force by the government for police and common defense not the privatization of the use of force. "Privatizing" by merely contracting with corporations instead of individuals to act as police or government agents has nothing to do at all with libertarianism. Privatizing in this sense is just a form of contract with a group of individuals instead of individuals directly. Similarly to contracting with a labor union that represents public employees.

In this sense "privatizing" in general has nothing to do with libertarianism if it means that government is still paying with taxpayer money which is collected by the use of force. Police and Military are fundamentally the only legitimate use of government's taxing authority and even then taxes should be considered a necessary evil, but only necessary if the government can't collect sufficient money with a voluntary system.

In this case I think an important line would have been crossed if the SWAT team direction, oversight and management is coming from a private corporation. To abdicate the police powers of the government to a private corporation would be very much anti-libertarian. Very anti-libertarian. And regardless of ideology I hope people will recognize it as a bad idea that should be reconsidered.

I think liberty is a worthwhile ideal to work towards, but first you have to understand what it means.

In short either they are government, and open to all of this, or they are private and fucked up the contract. Either case they can get sued.

Doesn't matter what the contract says. If they are acting on behalf of the government then they ARE the government and should be subject to the same rules and scrutiny. What the contract says is irrelevant if it contradicts the relevant laws because then the contract is void.

Either they are vigilantes or they are in violation of disclosure regulations. In both cases they should be in legal hot water.

Libertarians are against the initiation of violence, whether the perps are government thugs or quasi-private organizations like this. You can shove your smug little digs right back up the hole it came from.

It's more than anti-libertarians should love this, because what it shows is that we don't even have to open up the market in the ways that libertarians are asking for in order for corporations to become the jackbooted foot stomping on your head forever. It illustrates in fact the principle that corporations ought to be if not in fact outlawed altogether (co-ops of people, and co-ops of co-ops can fulfill all the same functions) then severely limited in scope as to what they are permitted to do.

Not really, given that this is still being paid for by taxpayers. Actual libertarians wouldn't support this because the reality is that this is a very large government entity using bureaucracy to avoid accountability.

If they are a private security firm contracting with local law enforcement then wouldn't local law enforcement still be required to comply with open records requests concerning that contract and services provided? I contracted that out, shouldn't alleviate the burden of records keeping or requests.

What's wrong with that? Libertarians should love this - government slashed to bare minimum (or below) and everything in private hands. And as we know, *everything* is better when privately operated. Next step should be deregulating LEC market to enable true competition.

Like Martin Niemöller [ushmm.org] pointed out, nobody cares about things like this until they are being targeted themselves. I don't expect Libertarians to be any different.

It's ironic for you to cite Martin Niemöller in this context. Niemöller was initially a supporter of the Nazi regime, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal, and anti-democratic. His statement is truthful: he only started opposing the Nazis when they started making his life difficult, and he really only broke with Nazi ideology after having been imprisoned for years. But his apology and subsequent pacifism themselves were opportunism, and he just moved on from supporting one form of totalitarianism to another

Libertarians should love this - government slashed to bare minimum (or below) and everything in private hands.

Except they aren't in private hands — they are paid for by the tax-payers.

And, BTW, most Libertarians do agree, that law-enforcement is the government's function — the sole one, perhaps. Oh, it may be provided by private companies, but those must be hired by and operate on the authority of the local governments.

I think most libertarians would say there is nothing wrong with government outsourcing law enforcement; but there is something wrong with doing so as a way to skirt legal requirements.

In this example the PEOPLE have enacted records requirements for state and local law enforcement. If the various municipalities want to outsource that is fine but whoever they hire needs to be subject to the same legal requirements. If they are working for the 'state' they are state actors and should be expected to follow the same rules the state is subject; that should be in their contract and if they don't want to agree to those terms then they can't bid on the job. Just like if I want my house painted, anyone is welcome to bid on the job but if you won't make it the color I want than I can't hire you. If the LEC can't follow the records rules for all activities related to their working for law enforcement they can't be hired or that is how it should work.

As a libertarian though my main issue is really with the state having to much power in the first place. Private security forces are just fine, but they should work for private groups. Your home owners association should be hiring security to keep your neighborhood safe for example, they naturally don't get the legal protection and police powers a 'state' agency would have, which is a powerful and important check on them and you.

I think a better thing to pull on would be the private police forces of the 'robber baron' era of US history where police forces were provided for by the local companies and did not exactly have the workers (or 3rd parties in the region) interest in mind.

Yes, there are legitimate situations where some police records need to be sealed for a modest period of time, in order to preserve the safety of undercover operatives/informants etc. Laws and procedures already exist to allow for that, all they have to do is convince a judge (privately) that some document needs to stay secret (for now) and it's fine.

This is different. This is an entire branch of law enforcement claiming that they never have to release any documents ever to anyone, no matter what's in them o

I can't speak for that poster but I can guess why he spelled it that way. "Liberal" used to mean something more like "libertarian" before its meaning was perverted and distorted from "liberal exercise of civil rights" to mean "liberal imposition of government power". Sometimes the term "Classical Liberal" is used in an attempt to reverse this deliberate and underhanded confusion.

Even "libertarian" itself has been deliberately distorted from "advocates a small government limited to a) public works, b) n